Discord is seemingly banning Nintendo Switch emulator devs following Yuzu's shutdown

After Nintendo essentially had the Switch emulator Yuzu shut down last month, Discord is seemingly banning creators of other emulators and their servers.

Last month, Nintendo and the creator of Yuzu, an emulator specifically for Switch games, settled the former's lawsuit with the latter agreeing to pay $2.4 million in "monetary relief." As a result, you can no longer easily download Yuzu, making Switch emulation much less accessible, and it set a precedent for future emulator developers - one that essentially says "try to do this, and you'll be a whole lot poorer." Now, as reported by The Verge, it appears that Discord is taking action against other Switch emulators by outright banning the creators of Suyu and Sudachi, two new emulators that are based on Yuzu.

According to a statement from Discord's director of product communications Kellyn Slone provided to The Verge, "Discord responds to and complies with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests. In this instance, there was also a court ordered injunction for the takedown of these materials, and we took action in a manner consistent with the court order."

The Verge explained that the devs behind Suyu and Sudachi received vague messages about the fact they were sharing content that allegedly violates intellectual property rights, but weren't given anything more specific. Discord also apparently explained that it's simply following the usual processes for DMCA takedown requests, but as The Verge points out, it's unclear if there was a valid request in the first place, or if these communities were even violating IP rights.

Important to note is that the lawsuit was settled rather than proven in court, and this settlement did not include giving Nintendo the rights over Yuzu's copyable code. The Verge also notes that this isn't the usual response to first time offenders, but Discord also didn't answer as to whether the devs were repeat offenders or not. Sudachi developer Jarrod Norwell claimed to The Verge that he wasn't doing anything infringing, but it's unclear what the truth is.

Both emulator projects are still ongoing, as Nintendo hasn't appeared to have filed anything against them at this point in time, but it does mean that the creators will need to find another method to discuss the projects.

Nintendo has a history of going after similar projects, but it claimed in February that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had been pirated over a million times before it had released, made possible by Yuzu, so this will likely be why the company is going after such projects.